Wen | always makes sense
On valentine's day just past, the flower lipstick was jubilant, but the chocolate that had dominated Valentine's Day for many years was slightly lonely. Nowadays, it is no longer popular to send chocolate during the festival, and this once sweet and romantic synonym seems to be gradually falling in the consumer market.
Everything seems to have a premonition, just on the eve of Valentine's Day, the American chocolate brand "Hershey" continued to come from unstable movements, it is reported that Hershey first closed its Tmall flagship store, and then Jingdong's self-operated flagship store was exposed to a number of goods out of stock. The leaks were raining overnight, and soon dealers from all over the country said that Hershey China Investment Management Co., Ltd. had retreated from its Shanghai office.
As early as November 2021, Tianyan checked that the company's change records showed that "liquidation team member filings" appeared. In 2020, Hershey's sales in China fell by 46%, including 82.2% in the fourth quarter.
Not only Good times, from 2018 to 2020, the top five domestic chocolate market share are Dove, Kinder, Nestlé, Ferrero, and Snickers. The big five don't look like much of a stellar one either, with Dove slipping from 22.8 percent in 2018 to 22.4 percent and Ferrero slipping from 8.7 percent to 7.6 percent.
To this day, even Valentine's Day can't save them.
Chocolate "lost" Valentine's Day
The romantic routine of chocolate is the same as that of diamonds.
In the 1930s, a Japanese confectionery company made a gift advertisement for Valentine's Day, which not only redefined Valentine's Day, but also tied chocolate and Valentine's Day tightly for the next hundred years, successfully allowing couples to pay their wallets several times a year. It is undeniable that the consumption scene of chocolate is extremely single, and the media consulting survey shows that holiday gifts are the main consumption scenarios of chocolate, accounting for up to 38%.
As Juliet Binoche, the heroine of the movie "Chocolate", once said: You can't refuse chocolate, just like you can't refuse love. Once this kind of rhetoric is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the consumption atmosphere basically sets the tone.
For a long time, the annual Valentine's Day was a good opportunity for chocolate to play a big role in the consumer market, and for couples, no beautiful gift was as good as chocolate. Suning's official data shows that in 2018 and 2019, chocolate was the top three in the Tanabata gift sales list, and increased by 347% and 512% year-on-year.
Coincidentally, data from Watsons shows that from 2018 to 2019, chocolate sales during tanabata were 20 times more than condoms sold in the same period. Unfortunately, with the ever-changing consumer market, new consumption is pervasive in various fields, and the original romantic color of chocolate has gradually faded, and even marked with the prejudice label of "old soil".
Instead of more and more things, flowers, makeup, luxury goods... These gifts, which can attract the envy of a large number of people on social platforms, seem to give chocolate a resounding slap in the face. For example, Jingdong data shows that in the 2021 Tanabata consumption cycle, the sales growth rate of makeup suits is the most amazing, with an increase of more than 700% year-on-year.
Secondly, flowers have always been the biggest rival of chocolate, and from 2016 to 2019, the growth rate of flowers during various Valentine's Day periods has remained in the top five in all categories. Since 2019, Tanabata's flower sales have even reached the highest proportion of flower sales in the whole year. Straight men choose gifts is always simple and rude, from February 1 to 12, 2021, diamond jewelry sales increased by 62.41% year-on-year, and in the same period of 2020, an increase of about 143.52%.
Of course, there are lipsticks adapted to various scenarios, from February 1 to 12, 2021, Suning's platform lipstick sales increased by 62.97% year-on-year, and in the same period of 2020, it increased by about 71.18%. Interestingly, Valentine's Day will not only ripen romantic consumption, but the single economy will also do the opposite.
For example, every year on Valentine's Day is the day when the sales of dog food soared, and from February 1 to 12 last year, the sales of dog food increased by 135.81% year-on-year, which made people cry and laugh. On the other hand, chocolate, it is true that chocolate "lost" Valentine's Day is an indisputable fact, leaving aside the macro level and looking at the specific situation alone.
A store manager of China Resources Wanjia Supermarket said that the amount of chocolate stock on Valentine's Day is about less than 20,000 yuan, compared with usual, the booth and the pile head in recent years are only symbolically about 10 square meters, and in previous years, the chocolate pile heads of major supermarkets should be at least 20 square meters.
Can no longer rely on the holiday blood transfusion, the chocolate market wants to get rid of this shackles undoubtedly has two ways, one is to trace the market, rob the Valentine's Day consumption, the other is to go with the trend, completely peel off chocolate and love. In April last year, Daily Black Qiao sold 400,000 boxes in Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room, and then flashed Li Jiaqi, Lin Yilun and other live broadcast rooms.
Although this style of play is effective, it is still impossible to avoid one point: chocolate consumption is sluggish. According to Zhiyan Consulting, since 2015, the sales of chocolate have begun to show a downward trend. As of 2016, China's chocolate retail sales have generally declined by 4%, and the per capita consumption of China's chocolate market is already far below the world level.
When couples no longer give chocolate as a gift, who will pay for chocolate...
Couples who don't want to pay for the "premium" anymore
Double eleven price reduction, Valentine's Day price increase, helpless, business routines are like this.
This year's Valentine's Day consumer market premium is particularly serious, taking the flower market as an example, many florist owners complained in the circle of friends a few days ago: this year's flower price is the highest in the flower industry for more than ten years. It is reported that the quotation of the flower market merchants is staggeringly high, and the price of 10 roses starts at 120 yuan; lilies, roses, and carnations also increase in price exponentially, and the popular flower species even rises by two to three times.
I don't know when it started, Valentine's Day consumption has been upgraded. I have to admit that the deformed consumption created by romance is a common practice in the current social environment, although there is not much logical connection between love and material, but in the business deliberately throwing a delicate and sweet trap, most people can not be spared.
The coldness of consumerism is well known, on Valentine's Day 2017, someone asked on social platforms "What gift is better for Tanabata to send to a girlfriend, within 200 yuan?" This simple message quickly rushed to Weibo hot search, and the highest praise comment was "200 yuan, it is better to send her a freedom", and the emotional objectification is vividly expressed in the satire.
In recent years, the price of Valentine's Day has been rising steadily, and it seems that only high prices can prove each other's sincerity. Taking the immortal flower, which is popular with young couples, as an example, ROSEONLY's immortal rose zodiac sign price is 1314 yuan, and the immortal flower music ball gift box is as high as 2999 yuan; a Fauvist family's immortal flower music box is also around 1600; on the little red book, the immortal flower brand with a price of more than five figures abounds. Couples are arrogant during the festival, and no matter how expensive they are, they have to bear the pain to pay.
The hotel is the most serious premium at this node, and the data shows that on February 14, 2019, the highest priced couple hotel in the country was as high as 26770 yuan per night, and the address was in Macau. Changchun, Beijing, Xiamen, Jilin and other cities on Valentine's Day also appeared room rates of more than 10,000 yuan on valentine's day, Jinan Changqing District express hotel can soar to more than three times the normal price on the day.
Although the consumption madness of Valentine's Day is not as good as that of Double Eleven, it is a leader in the holiday economy. As early as Valentine's Day in 2017, the sales of Suning Tesco's online Valentine's Day related products reached more than 50 million yuan, and the average cost per man was 128.90 yuan. 83.42% of couples need to spend money for Valentine's Day, of which 500 to 1000 yuan are the most, accounting for more than 20%.
An interesting phenomenon, now the romance of Valentine's Day seems to be no longer easy to impress consumers, especially after the live broadcast with goods will play the concept of "cheap" to the extreme, in the face of the holiday premium, the psychological gap of consumers is naturally not small.
In addition, when the sense of festive ceremony became a large Versailles scene in the circle of friends, the emotional factor slowly began to be greatly reduced. Since last year's Internet celebrity Meng Qiqi brought fire to Versailles literature, exquisite human settings are often self-defeating, and show and not show are more like a social game for many young people.
Rather than pay for thousands of goods, they would rather transfer money directly.
It is reported that Valentine's Day transfer has become a popular way of celebrating the holiday, married people prefer to send red envelopes directly than unmarried people, and surveys show that the former directly sending red envelopes is more than twice as much as the latter. Men, especially those over the age of 44, are not interested in Valentine's Day. Suning member big data shows that male members in the 18-44 age group search for Valentine's Day-related products accounted for 97.1%, while men over 44 years old accounted for only 0.7% of searches.
There is nothing wrong with love per se, it is the excessive alienation of business from the holidays.
Flood of Valentine's Day, tired young people
The first Valentine's Day in China was in April 1993.
When a shoe company chose to advertise for Valentine's Day in the newspaper, it was published four times in the Beijing Youth Daily alone. At the same time, McDonald's in Wangfujing also posted a poster of "Romantic and Warm Valentine's Eve", and couples who come to eat in the store on Valentine's Day can get a rose for free.
It is reported that in the 90s, the Royal Palace Hotel also launched a Valentine's Day party with a high price of 300 yuan, which had a good effect, and the hotel's reservation telephone was almost exploded. How many Valentine's Days are there in a year? Baidu Encyclopedia's answer is 14, which may be counterintuitive, but it is true. Everything involves love, there are countless topics to snare the world of lovers, just because of the flood of Valentine's Day, the public's emotional fatigue is also increasingly generated.
Even the young people who love to join in the fun are reluctant to celebrate the festival every three or five minutes.
According to a questionnaire once launched by Kartable, most students will no longer celebrate Valentine's Day, the survey subjects are junior high school students to college students, 72% of them said they will no longer celebrate Valentine's Day, 47% said they are single, they will directly ignore Valentine's Day.
The Spring Festival has passed in a hurry, and people who have just experienced marriage hypnosis abound. A few days ago, a survey conducted by China Youth Daily on 2021 unmarried youth showed that 68.2% of the unmarried young people interviewed had experienced "marriage hypnosis", and the Valentine's Day that came to the end was really uninteresting, and holiday anxiety spread among young people.
A rose is not as leisurely as entertaining itself, and this anxiety has long been quietly prevalent in all corners of the world. For example, on Christmas Day 2018, Anxiety UK CEO Nikki Lidbert first proposed "Christmas anxiety" in an interview with The Mirror, and just a month later, a report on "holiday anxiety" by the domestic Xinhua network made young people on both sides of the ocean suddenly pity each other.
According to statistics, China's single group has exceeded 240 million, the average post-90s love is less than 2 times, and the average post-95 empty window period is more than 2 years. Valentine's Day is too lazy to pay for consumerism, and the single stick of Double Eleven can ride the dust. According to the statistics of Everbright Securities' 2021 Double Eleven data report, the turnover of the double eleven network in 2021 still achieved a year-on-year increase of 12.22%, with a total amount of 965.12 billion yuan.
It's funny that Valentine's Day has to curry favor with single people these days. The year before Tanabata, in this special season, a group of romantic marketing was caught off guard by the "widow" service of a "Tanabata frog". This frog not only made the single economy turn out on Valentine's Day, but also appeared on Weibo's hot search with 580 million views.
Valentine's Day is dominated by "widowhood", and in a way, it is a self-attack on romanticism by young people. But it is only an attack, and there is still a long way to go before the situation of completely reversing the situation of consumption wrapped in emotions, after all, according to statistics, according to statistics, there are more than 1 million people searching for related frog services on the day of Tanabata.
Couples are warm, single and widowed, it seems that no matter what, the profiteers will take Valentine's Day to death.